Experiments in robotic boat localization

Abstract

We are motivated by the prospect of automating microbial observing systems. To this end we have designed and built a robotic boat as part of a sensor network for monitoring aquatic environments. In this paper, we describe a dynamic model of the boat, an algorithm for estimating its location by integrating various sensor inputs, a controller for waypoint following and extensive field experiments (over 10 km aggregate) to validate each of these. We test the localization accuracy in different sensing regimes as a prelude to accommodating sensing failures.